Reflections
by LeftyGeek
Summary: Shortly after the end of Last Sacrifice, Rose reflects upon how her life has changed...


Reflections

_A/N: This is just a short, post Last Sacrifice fic. There's not a lot happening, I was just trying to get a feel for writing from Rose's POV. But I think it did turn out to be pretty cute, so I'm posting it. Hope you enjoy! Read & review!_

Sometimes, when I thought back to how far we'd all come, it seemed unbelievable. The girl I saw in the mirror was still sassy, still badass, still sexy as hell, but she was tamer somehow—more _grown up_, if you will. You didn't die—twice—and come out of it unchanged. I pondered this thought as I put on my earrings—small, simple yet elegant diamonds. They were a testament to this new and more refined Rose Hathaway. I could not have gone through everything I had for the last year and remained the same immature, cocky, and—yes, I'll admit it—reckless—teenager I had been.

The new Rose Hathaway was responsible, reliable, outspoken, confident, and basically unstoppable. Oh, and did I mention that her best friend was the new Moroi queen? That's right—_Queen_ Vasilisa Dragomir had a few badass tricks up her sleeves too. God, I was so proud of Lissa. She was amazing! The queen! My best friend was the motherfucking queen! It had been a whole three weeks now, and sometimes I _still_ didn't believe it.

And when your best friend is the queen, and you're part of her royal guard, you get to live like royalty. Yes, sir, here I was, sitting on a cushy little velvet chair, in front of my very own fancy, hand-carved vanity, applying make-up that probably cost a small fortune, in a bathroom that, on its own, was larger than any entire living space I'd had in my whole life.

Of course, the nicest fixture in my royal suite was the amazing, loving, incredibly sexy man I got to share it with. Dimitri Belikov—my ex-mentor, ex-Stigoi, current lover. After overcoming what I liked to think was every possible adversity, we were finally, _finally_ together. There was no more sneaking around, hiding our relationship. There was no more of him holding back from his feelings. For a long time, we'd both thought our chance to be together was destroyed. And when we figured out that it wasn't—well, I think that was the happiest I'd ever been in my whole life.

God, was I lucky. Dimitri was easily the most attractive guy I'd ever laid eyes on. He was tall with chiseled muscles, and a handsome face and the warmest, deepest brown eyes I could easily drown in. He had shoulder-length brown hair that he always wore tied back at the base of his neck. God, I loved his hair—but probably not as much as I knew he loved mine. That thought brought a small smile to my face as I applied my eyeliner. Oh, and was his voice ever sexy! He had an adorable Russian accent, and I loved the way he said my name. _Roza_. I could almost hear him saying it to me right now.

"Roza?" I guess I wasn't just hearing Dimitri's voice in my thoughts. I grinned. It still thrilled me knowing that he was actually here—and he was mine.

"I'm in here!" I called to him. He stepped into the bathroom. I'd just finished up my make-up and I turned around to face him.

"Roza," he breathed softly. "You look beautiful." It was the first time I'd been dressed up in quite a while. I wore a simple, yet elegant, black dress. It came to my knees and was clingy over my curves. It had a modest neckline, showing just a tiny bit of cleavage. On the right side, beginning at the narrowest part of my waist, an intricate design was sewn onto the dress in tiny black sequins, going down to about the middle of my thigh. Lissa had actually gotten the dress for me as a gift, and judging from Dimitri's reaction, she'd done a good job.

Dimitri took me into his arms and held me tightly against his chest. We stood that way for a long moment, neither of us needing to say a word to know how the other felt. We might've been the luckiest people on earth. Dimitri placed his hand on my face and tilted my head up towards his. He bent down and kissed me softly. God, I had missed the way he kissed. Now I never wanted him to stop. But after a moment, he did.

"I love you, Roza," he whispered to me, planting a kiss on my forehead.

"I love you too, comrade."

"We better get going, if you're ready," said Dimitri. "We don't want to be late." I sighed deeply, not wanting to let go of him.

"Yeah, you're right."

"You sound so sad," Dimitri teased. "Your best friend is throwing a party. You used to love parties." He smirked at me.

"Well, the days of Rose Hathaway, party girl, are over," I replied. "They've been replaced by the days of Rose Hathaway, badass guardian to the queen."

"Which is precisely why we're going to go celebrate," said Dimitri, laughing. It still felt so amazing to hear him laugh. I couldn't get enough of it.

Lissa was throwing a small party tonight, to celebrate everything falling into place. Well, mostly it was to celebrate that I was alive, but I wasn't calling all the attention to myself. There was plenty to be happy about. It felt great for things to be calm for once. I could breathe easy. None of my friends were in immediate danger—nor was I. There were plenty of things that weren't perfect. I thought for a moment of Adrian and how I'd hurt him. I thought of Tasha and the pain I knew she'd caused Christian. Yeah, there were a lot of things that still needed fixing.

But when you looked at the bigger picture, things were much better than they'd been in a long time. We were all getting ready to begin a new chapter of our lives.

I held Dimitri's hand as we walked across the royal court to the party—out in the open, in front of everyone. We no longer had to hide our love from the world anymore. It didn't matter what anyone thought.

We stood in the silver moonlight, hand in hand, finally as equals. This is the way it was always supposed to be, I thought to myself.

"You're right, Roza," said Dimitri, reading my thoughts. "This is exactly how it's supposed to be." And he bent down and kissed me, right in the center of the royal court.


End file.
